president obama and speaker boehner spoke by phone yesterday for the first time in a week. white house press secretary jay carney i find very interesting refused to characterize the conversation. let's bring in congressman chris van hollen of maryland tonight. good to have you with us. >> always good to when with you. >> you bet. are democrats united on this rate issue? we keep hearing it. now that boehner is starting to move a little bit and say that the money is going to come from the wealthy, yet he hasn't identified these reductions, where do democrats stand on rates? is that the bottom line? the rates have to go up? >> the rates have to go up, ed. it's a matter of simple math, as the president has said. which is why in the house of representatives the democrats filed what's called a discharge petition that would require the speaker to bring to the floor of the house the senate bill, the senate democratic bill that immediately would extend tax relief to all middle income taxpayers and would ask higher income folks to pay more. if we can get about 26 republicans to put t